Free writing helps develop fluency because free writing provides you with practice suspending judgement. If you can think, freely and aloud in writing, you may find it becomes easier to start writing. You may become more relaxed in your approach to the writing process because you are practicing saying everything, without judgment, knowing that at a later time, you will be able to refine your thinking and expression. In the meanwhile, you practice filling time with writing, rather than pages.
Decide on a fixed period of time and set a timer. You can begin with five minutes and increase from there as you see fit. Remember to end when the timer goes off. It can be good for your confidence over time to know you can end and begin again.
Choose a topic or a prompt to help you begin to write, keep you going and focus your writing. You can begin writing what is immediately on your mind, or use the writing to review what’s on your mind.
Fill time, not space. Often, when we think about writing, we think of a number of words or pages. Here, your goal is to write for the allotted time without stopping.
Keep you your hand moving. Don’t stop to reconsider or to polish. If you feel you want to say something differently, don’t erase. I would say it will be more helpful simply to repeat yourself differently. Remember that the idea is not to create perfect prose. Rewriting is an important process. This process puts the clay on the table you’ll work with later.
Follow your thinking. If you find yourself distracted by a line of thought, follow the direction it takes. Explore your ideas.
Be concrete. Be particular in what you describe.
Speak freely. Allow yourself to write without the expectation that you will say what you want perfectly. Repeat yourself, if you’d like. But practice setting judgement aside, with respect to style or thought.
You’re more likely to get unstuck if you find some way to physically keep going. If you are stuck, try: writing the the the, nonsense words, repeated phrases. Rephrase some of what you’ve already written. Focus on describing something very concrete-- physical state, emotional state, physical surroundings.
Publish and Flourish Workshop
Get up and walk away. Sometimes sessions are lousy, sometimes, routine, sometimes marvelous. Since there is no way to get this wrong don’t bother yourself with thoughts like “I hope I did this right. My writing isn’t free enough. I mostly wrote the the the.” Just come back tomorrow.
Experiment with a routine. Some do this daily. Elbow suggests at least three times a week.
A Note on "Being Stuck"
Recently someone told me that she tried to free write upon my advice and found herself stuck with herself-- anxiously perseverating, pawing over something that embarrassed her or some negative experience or self-assessment. I understand this and there was a period of time when I free wrote extensively and this was very much the case for me and very painful. So I have given this a lot of thought.
In a meditation practice, such as meditation on the breath, where a meditator while practice awareness of the breath, when her mind wanders or a line of thinking takes over, the practice is to become aware of the thought, to see it without judgement-- not to try and stop it or criticize oneself for thinking, which, after all, is what minds are meant to do-- but to return to the breath. It is hard to do. The meditation teacher Jack Kornfield has said that it is like training a puppy. The puppy wanders away and you bring it back. I have found that difficult in non-stop writing, since I am thinking on paper and my thinking is the think I am attending to. I am trying to keep myself writing. But when my writing becomes a rehearsal of my fears, misgivings, doubts, and uncertainties, when I am behaving ungenerously toward my life, projects, body or self, I am no longer free writing, I suppose. I am now doing something else more again to writing "I will always do as I am told" on the blackboard a thousand times.
I have a couple of suggestions. One is to simply stop and have that be okay. It would defeat the purpose of the practice to judge the experience or the outcome. But I have tried other things as well. I began to think of this perseverating as a form of “stuckedness”. When I am stuck, I turn to the concrete. I look around and describe what I see in my physical environment. I describe my physical state. I name what I am doing directly: you are anxious right now about what so and so said. That’s difficult. What are your plans for dinner tonight? Again, by being concrete and turning my attention to something benign that requires focus, it interrupts my attention to something that often, but not always, turns is forgotten as I re focus.